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ISIS Sets Its Sights on the East

In 2014, this photo of Muslim ISIS supporters in India’s Tamil Nadu state went viral on Twitter.

This month’s ISIS manifesto claims India as part of Islamic Caliphate and, referring to the recent resurgence of Hindus in the country, states: “a movement of Hindus is growing who kill Muslims who eat beef.”

ISIS flags and insignia are regularly displayed at protest rallies and religious gatherings in the Muslim-majority province of Kashmir.

Indian officials seem just as afraid of calling Islamist terror by its rightful name as their Western counterparts. Instead, they appear to be trying to distract the public by throwing money at ineffective social welfare programs. Perhaps these officials hope the public will think that at least “something” is being done.

The Islamic State (ISIS) is apparently planning to subjugate and conquer the ancient civilizations of the East as part of its worldwide jihad.

The Islamic State’s newly-released manifesto contains, among the ideological positions and strategic objectives of the self-proclaimed Islamic Caliphate, direct threats to Hindus and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The 130-page English-language manifesto, entitled “Black Flags from the Islamic State (2016),” was uploaded in early December on various online forums sympathetic to the Islamic State. Previously, in July 2015, ISIS had circulated another document declaring its ambitions of expanding its Jihad into India.

This month’s ISIS manifesto claims India as part of Islamic Caliphate and, referring to the recent resurgence of Hindus in the country, states: “a movement of Hindus is growing who kill Muslims who eat beef.”

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The ISIS manifesto mentions India’s Prime Minister Modi as a “right-wing Hindu nationalist who worships weapons and is preparing his people for a future war against Muslims.”

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After last month’s Paris attacks, India issued a nation-wide alert.

Seeking to broaden the ‘intellectual’ horizon of its sympathetic readers, the manifesto recommends earlier texts published by ISIS such as; “Black Flags from the East,” “Black Flags from Rome” and “Black Flags from Palestine.”

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Support for ISIS is not, however, limited to a handful of identifiable operatives. ISIS flags and insignia are regularly displayed at protest rallies and religious gatherings in the Muslim-majority province of Kashmir. In July, the Muslim festival of Eid-al-Fitr was marked by widespread vandalism and stone-throwing, carried out by rioters waving Pakistani, Palestinian and ISIS flags.

The Islamic State’s social media operation also bears at least one Indian signature. Last year, police in southern Indian city of Bangalore arrested a 24-year-old engineer who operated one of the main Twitter accounts associated with ISIS. The India-based Twitter account had 17,700 followers and circulated ISIS propaganda, including beheading videos.

The stated ambitions of ISIS to make India part of Muslim empire are not based on the historic Islamic conquest of India, mainly from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries, but are rooted in established, mainstream Islamic theology, central to an Islamic end-of-time prophecy in the hadith. Those reports of the sayings and actions Islam’s prophet Mohammad — collectively called Ghazwa-e-Hind — predict a final battle with India, and resulting in victory over the Hindus by the invading Muslim armies.

Instead of tackling the problem head-on, Indian Muslim organizations continue to deny the presence of the Islamic State and its affiliates in the country. On December 9, 2015, the umbrella body of Muslim organizations, the All India Muslim Majlis-e Mushawarat (AIMMM), issued a press release calling the reports of ISIS’s penetration into India “baseless and misleading.”

Despite regular video footage broadcast by Indian news channels, showing Muslims regularly carrying ISIS flags during religious gatherings and protests in the Muslim majority region of Kashmir, Muslim leaders maintained their claim that “ISIS does not exist in Kashmir.” Instead, they portray themselves as victims of an elaborate conspiracy hatched by the Indian security forces to “pave the way for their large-scale arrests.”